Look at this mother fucker
that :large-adult-son: would just be snapped up like a pelican eating a fish
Great, now i have to walk up to that thing and ask if it plays gwent.
i used to work with birds. they very amusing animals, my favorite non-mammalian class. alternatively goofy, charming, or clever.
but only because they were small. it occurred to me early on that if they weighed as much as i did or more, they would be fill me with dread and terror. their beaks dont chew their victims so much as make them able to be swallowed. unlike animals with teeth, the "mechanical" form of digestion with birds happens inside their abdomen, where abdominal muscles grind their sometimes still living victims against grit (small stones, previously swalled) while secreting acid from the lining.
seems like a truly upsetting and potentially slow way to die.
I had a couple of ravens in my backyard this morning. But for that big ole reptile I'm going to need bigger bird feeders and bird baths.